HBA honors Nancy – but why?
Dear Mr. Younger,
I am writing you out of concern and disgust over the flag at Normal Street flying at half-staff this week. I came across your email from the Hillcrest Business Association’s (HBA)Web site. If this is not a matter that you are involved with, if you would be so kind to forward my email to the appropriate party. I assume the flag is flying at half-staff to recognize Nancy Reagan. If that is not the case, then I apologize. If however, the flag is flying at half-staff then I am angered and baffled that your organization or whomever is responsible for the maintenance and flying of the flag would not be sensitive to the thousands of lives that were lost to AIDS during the Reagan Presidency. Ronald Reagan could not even bring himself or his staff to say the word AIDS. Nancy Reagan was complicit in all of this behavior, even ironically while having a gay son.
I am disgusted that mostly gay men of a certain generation have been forgotten by a younger gay community by not showing appropriate respect and understanding of the facts and either take the flag down in protest or leave it fly at full staff.
It may be of help for your staff to review some of the early press conferences held at the Reagan White House at the beginning of the AIDS Crisis to see how ignorant and non-compassionate the Reagan administration was at a time when people were dying left and right.
As a community that has lost countless to a disease that still is incurable, our Hillcrest community chose to honor the first lady of the president who in my opinion has blood on his hands for not doing more at the early stages of the crisis.
Sincerely,
Ted May
SAN DIEGO
Editor’s note: Ted May’s letter to Glenn Younger, who is vice president of the Hillcrest Business Association, was also sent to San Diego LGBT Weekly.
I don’t see any reason to lower the rainbow flag because Nancy Reagan passed away.
On the other hand, President Reagan COULD have been a lot worse than he was to gays.
When AIDS came to public attention during his presidency, no one knew whether or not it might spread to the general population. Reagan could have quarantined gays in camps. And judging by the many people who hated and feared gays at the time, I’m sure he was advised to do just that.
He didn’t. And he didn’t say anything nasty about gays, either. He just didn’t say much at all.
But the federal government under his watch did spend money on AIDS research and treatment. Maybe not as much as people might have liked, but during his administration, Dr. Robert Gallo supposedly discovered that HIV was the cause of AIDS (Luc Montagnier seems to have taken exception to that claim).
In my opinion, there is too much partisanship in the gay community.
Why did we as a community demand the firing of the head of Mozilla for being against gay marriage when Obama himself was against it until after he started his second term as president?
And let’s not forget that Bill Clinton signed off on DOMA — the Defense of (straight) Marriage Act.
I would also like to know why we have never gotten ENDA passed. Why wasn’t there enough support for it when the Democrats controlled both houses in Congress and Obama was president?
It’s nice to be able to get married and serve in the military. But what about not being discriminated against in employment, housing and public accommodation?
There are still many parts of this country where that discrimination is legal — and it shouldn’t be.